Jun 29, 2023

There’s a joke among classical musicians that the only parts of a piece that matter are the beginning, the end, and one place in the middle.  I don’t think its something that anyone really believes in, but the value of the beginning of a piece in setting the scene cannot be ignored, and the absolutely stunning...

Jun 22, 2023

Maurice Ravel the Magician, the Swiss Watchmaker, the aloof, the elegant, the precise, the soulful, the childlike, the naive, the warm, the radical, the progressive. These are all words that were used to describe a man of elegant contradictions throughout his life and into today. I talked a lot about Ravel’s skill...

Jun 15, 2023

Have you ever been to an art museum and wished that you had music to accompany your experience?  Music that made the art you were looking at more vivid, more immediate, and more emotionally intense?  Well, Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is the piece for you.  Inspired by his late friend Victor...

Jun 8, 2023

Welcome to episode number 200 of Sticky Notes!!

On December 22nd, 1808, a day that would live in classical music lore forever, Ludwig Van Beethoven sat down for his very last appearance as a solo pianist to play this new piano concerto, his 4th. This performance was not only the premiere of the new piano concerto, but...

Jun 1, 2023

What did Dmitri Shostakovich intend to portray in his music? There is probably no more debated a question in all of 20th century Western Classica lMusic than this one. On the surface, it seems to have an easy answer. Shostakovich portrayed his own thoughts and feelings in his music, just as any other composer would. And...